The present invention relates to an electronic catalog system. More particularly, the present invention relates to an improved electronic catalog system capable of providing a customer at a remote location with accurate updated product information from a vendor each time the customer uses the electronic catalog system.
There are two common types of system architecture that are commonly used in conventional electronic catalog systems. One common system is a dial-up system. The dial-up system includes a remote computer at a customer location with modem capabilities and a main computer at the vendor's location. The customer uses his computer to log on to the vendor's computer as a user. The customer can then browse through a catalog menu on the vendor's computer. The primary disadvantage of a dial-up system is that graphics data cannot be transmitted from the vendor's computer to the customer's computer in a meaningful time frame. It takes a large amount of time to transmit graphics data over telephone lines via a modem, especially if high resolution is desired. Therefore, the dial-up system is not practical for catalogs which include both graphics data and textual data.
A second common electronic catalog system is a system which is located totally on the customer's computer. The data in the customer's computer is periodically updated by the vendor by sending updated data disks. The primary disadvantage of this catalog system is that the data is rarely totally accurate. The accuracy of the data depends on the vendor sending updated data disks to the customer. In addition, the customer must also take the time to install the latest updated data disk onto his computer.